Raul Fernandez (entrepreneur)

Last updated

Raul J. Fernandez (born c. 1966 in Washington, D.C.) is an entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and strategic partner. He is the vice chairman and owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, [1] [2] as well as a Special Advisor to General Atlantic Partners. [3] [4] [5] In 1991, he founded, took public and later sold Proxicom, an internet development and e-business consulting company, to Dimension Data at a transaction valued at $450 million. Fernandez serves as a Director for Broadcom, [6] Board Member and Interim CEO of DXC Technology, [7] GameStop, [8] InSite, PerfectSense Digital, SyncThink, URBANEER, and was previously a Director from 2001-2017 and Chairman of the Compensation Committee for Kate Spade & Company before they were sold to Tapestry in July 2017. [9] He is a current Chairman of the Board for RemoteRetail, [10] and ObjectVideo, [11] [12] a technology company sold to Alarm.com in 2017, and named a 2005 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. [13]

Contents

Fernandez, a native Washingtonian, is an active philanthropist in D.C. regional nonprofits, focusing his energy primarily on educational reform. In 2000 he co-founded Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), a philanthropic investment organization based in Washington, DC. Mr. Fernandez is a board member of DC College Access Program (DC-CAP), the DC Public Education Fund, and the Fernandez Foundation, and was previously the Chairman of Fight for Children.

Early life and education

Fernandez grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland with his family. He is the son of a Cuban father and an Ecuadorian mother. While a student at St. John's College High School, he attended a Capitol Hill fundraiser for Hispanic Republicans with his father. One of his father's friends introduced him to Congressman Jack Kemp's chief of staff leading Fernandez to a part-time intern position translating Spanish documents. During this time, he was given his first laptop computer and was his high school yearbook caption read, "Most remembered for being the first to have a computer." [14]

Proxicom

In 1991, Fernandez left his job at Digicon and founded Proxicom with $40,000. In late 2000, Proxicom gathered interest from two buyers: Compaq and Dimension Data. A bidding war ensued and Proxicom was bought by Dimension Data. [15]

From 2000 to 2002, he served as Chief Executive Officer for Dimension Data North America, and as a Director of its parent company, Dimension Data Holdings Plc, in 2001. [16]

Monumental Sports & Entertainment

Raul is the vice chairman and co-owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, a sports and venue management company that owns the NHL team Washington Capitals and the NBA franchise Washington Wizards. [17] [18] [19]

Other ventures

He is an active technology investor in disruptive companies across multiple verticals across all growth stages. He is the Chairman of a leading SaaS fashion company, RemoteRetail [20] that is partnered with top brands such as Cosabella [21] and ELOQUII. Fernandez is also an investor in Radius Networks, a leading provider of proximity technology solutions[ buzzword ] for major retailers, restaurant chains, sports and entertainment complexes.

He is an investor in the Professional Fighters League, the world's only major mixed martial arts league. In addition to traditional professional sports teams, Fernandez has invested in the top team in eSports, Cloud9, [22] a North American eSports team out of Los Angeles.


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualcomm</span> American semiconductor company

Qualcomm Incorporated is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4G, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA mobile communications standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CA Technologies</span> American software company (1976–2018)

CA Technologies, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc., and CA, Inc., was an American multinational enterprise software developer and publisher that existed from 1976 to 2018. CA grew to rank as one of the largest independent software corporations in the world, and at one point was the second largest. The company created systems software that ran in IBM mainframe, distributed computing, virtual machine, and cloud computing environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cypress Semiconductor</span> Defunct American semiconductor company

Cypress Semiconductor was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered NOR flash memories, F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers, PSoC programmable system-on-chip solutions, analog and PMIC Power Management ICs, CapSense capacitive touch-sensing controllers, Wireless BLE Bluetooth Low-Energy and USB connectivity solutions.

Linksys Holdings, Inc., is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products include Wi-Fi routers, mesh Wi-Fi systems, Wifi extenders, access points, network switches, and Wi-Fi networking. It is headquartered in Irvine, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadcom Corporation</span> Defunct American fabless semiconductor company

Broadcom Corporation was an American fabless semiconductor company that made products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies for $37 billion in 2016 and currently operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the merged entity Broadcom Inc.

GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer. The company is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, and is the largest video game retailer worldwide. As of January 28, 2023, the company operates 4,413 stores including 2,949 in the United States, 216 in Canada, 419 in Australia and 829 in Europe under the GameStop, EB Games, EB Games Australia, Micromania-Zing, ThinkGeek and Zing Pop Culture brands. The company was founded in Dallas in 1984 as Babbage's, and took on its current name in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Samueli</span> American billionaire businessman

Henry Samueli is an American businessman, engineer, and philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evercore</span> American financial services company

Evercore Inc., formerly known as Evercore Partners, is a global independent investment banking advisory firm founded in 1995 by Roger Altman, David Offensend, and Austin Beutner. The firm has advised on over $4.7 trillion of merger, acquisition, and restructuring transactions since its founding. Evercore is widely considered one of the most prestigious and elite investment banking advisory firms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadcom</span> American semiconductor company

Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wireless, storage, and industrial markets. As of 2023, some 79 percent of Broadcom's revenue was coming from its semiconductor-based products and 21 percent from its infrastructure software products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proxicom</span>

Proxicom, Inc. was an interactive agency that developed custom-tailored interactive and web-enabled solutions for Global 1000 organizations. Founded in 1991 by American entrepreneur and philanthropist Raul Fernandez (entrepreneur), Proxicom was one of the original interactive professional services organizations from the dot com era. Proxicom provided services for a number of industries including: Automotive, Financial Services, Retail & Consumer Goods (CPG), Healthcare, Technology & Media, Government, Energy & Utilities, and Industrial Materials & Goods.

Jeffrey Mallett is a Canadian entrepreneur and investor. He is best known for building internet giant Yahoo!. Described as Yahoo's "wizard behind the curtains pulling all the levers," Mallett manages a portfolio of Internet, sports, entertainment and real estate investments in the United States, Canada, England, and China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workday, Inc.</span> American software company

Workday, Inc., is an American on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management, human capital management, and student information system software vendor. Workday was founded by David Duffield, founder and former CEO of ERP company PeopleSoft, along with former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri, following Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Litman</span> American entrepreneur and angel investor (born 1973)

Eric Austin Litman is an American entrepreneur and angel investor, and currently serves as CEO of the robotics health technology company, Aescape, inc. Litman co-founded Proxicom, built Viaduct from a one-man shop through a merger with the Wolf Group, and was the founder and CEO of Medialets, a mobile ad serving and advertising analytics company acquired by WPP plc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology</span> UC research institution

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, previously Cal(IT)2), also referred to as the Qualcomm Institute (QI) at its San Diego branch, is a $400 million academic research institution jointly run by the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and the University of California, Irvine (UCI); in January 2022, plans were announced to add University of California, Riverside to the consortium. Calit2 was established in 2000 as one of the four UC Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation. As a multidisciplinary research institution, it is conducting research discovering new ways in which emerging technologies can improve the state's economy and citizens' quality of life. Keeping in mind its goal of addressing large-scale societal issues, Calit2 extends beyond education and research by also focusing on the development and deployment of prototype infrastructure for testing new solutions in real-world environments. Calit2 also provides an academic research environment in which students can work alongside industry professionals to take part in conducting research and prototyping and testing new technologies.

Charles Chi is an entrepreneur, venture investor, and served as Chancellor of Carleton University from 2011 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PowerCloud Systems</span>

PowerCloud Systems was a cloud networking company located in Palo Alto, California. The company designed and manufactured cloud-powered Wi-Fi systems for businesses, carriers and consumers and was a corporate spin-off from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a Xerox company. PowerCloud was purchased by Comcast in July 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyd Carney</span> American businessman

Lloyd Carney is an American businessman who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is formerly the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Brocade Communications Systems leaving that position when Brocade was acquired by Broadcom Limited in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DXC Technology</span> American multinational IT services company

DXC Technology Company is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott A. McGregor</span> American technology executive and philanthropist

Scott A. McGregor is an American technology executive and philanthropist. He was the lead developer of Windows 1.0, he was the CEO of Philips Semiconductors from 2001 to 2004, and was the CEO of Broadcom from 2005 until its acquisition in 2016.

Michael J. Salvino is an American business executive. He was president and CEO of DXC Technology from September 2019 to December 2023.

References

  1. ↑ "Digital Locations Selects Ampsy as Social Geofencing Partner". Business Insider. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Laurene Powell Jobs is buying a big stake in Wizards, Capitals sports empire". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  3. ↑ Henderson, Tom (May 16, 2018). "Urbaneer provides downtown living space solutions in Grand Rapids". Crain's Detroit Business. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  4. ↑ Heath, Thomas (July 27, 2017). "What the mega-rich tell their kids about money". Financial Review. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  5. ↑ Hall, Gina. "Broadcom unveils 11 nominees for Qualcomm's board in first move toward hostile takeover". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  6. ↑ "Raul Fernandez | Board Member | Broadcom Inc". investors.broadcom.com. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
  7. ↑ "DXC Technology Adds David Barnes and Raul Fernandez to Board of Directors". DXC Technology. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
  8. ↑ "GameStop Appoints Raul Fernandez and Lizabeth Dunn to Board of Directors | Gamestop Corp". news.gamestop.com. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
  9. ↑ Hall, Gina. "Broadcom unveils 11 nominees for Qualcomm's board in first move toward hostile takeover". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  10. ↑ "RemoteRetail | About the team behind 100% remote customer engagement". RemoteRetail. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
  11. ↑ Zaczkiewicz, Arthur (March 6, 2018). "Futuristic Tech Trends Can Boost Brand Loyalty And Personalization". Footwear News. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  12. ↑ Alaimo, Dan. "Cosabella conversions jump 30% with personalization tech". Retail Dive. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  13. ↑ "The World Economic Forum Selects ObjectVideo a Technology Pioneer for 2005". Business Wire. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Raul Fernandez '84 Shares Lessons Learned". St. John's College High School. February 28, 2014. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
  15. ↑ Journal, David PringleStaff Reporter of The Wall Street (May 15, 2001). "Dimension Data Ends Series of Deals With $448 Million Purchase of Proxicom". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved January 28, 2020.
  16. ↑ "Raul Fernandez joins Dimension Data's board of directors". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved January 28, 2020.
  17. ↑ Henderson, Tom (May 16, 2018). "Urbaneer provides downtown living space solutions in Grand Rapids". Crain's Detroit Business. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  18. ↑ Heath, Thomas (July 27, 2017). "What the mega-rich tell their kids about money". Financial Review. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  19. ↑ Hall, Gina. "Broadcom unveils 11 nominees for Qualcomm's board in first move toward hostile takeover". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  20. ↑ Zaczkiewicz, Arthur (March 6, 2018). "Futuristic Tech Trends Can Boost Brand Loyalty And Personalization". Footwear News. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  21. ↑ Alaimo, Dan. "Cosabella conversions jump 30% with personalization tech". Retail Dive. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  22. ↑ Elliot, Eric (April 3, 2018). "10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT RAUL FERNANDEZ". Dingman Blog. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.